


Introspection

by Eneaswriting



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 19-Year-Old Miya Osamu, Bear with my rambling, Character Study, Growing Up, Introspection, Mentioned Miya Atsumu, Osamu is in crisis, Osamutober, Other, i love this man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27239332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eneaswriting/pseuds/Eneaswriting
Summary: Osamu is already entering adulthood, but as he moves into his new apartment, the doubts about his identity unleash the question of what part of himself has grown.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Introspection

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first published fic on English, so I´m pretty excited!
> 
> I always thought that there was a lack of introspection fics about a single character in the haikyuu!! fandom, so I decided to innovate on that with one of my favorite characters <3
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

As for today's date, Osamu Miya is nineteen years old.

Right now, as dawn bleeds the sky down, he's sitting on the floor of his brand new apartment, waiting for the kettle set a few steps away to finish boiling water.

He moved in this morning, and almost all of the boxes of his belongnings, without counting the essential ones, are still wrapped, since he had to do the moving all on his own.

 _All on his own_ is a phrase Osamu thought would never apply to him.

The kettle whistles, and Osamu stands to stop it at the top of the kitchen's counter. After grabbing a mug, and adding a spoon of coffee, he pours the water in.

His mother assured that an electric kettle was a good investment for when you start to live by yourself, "It saves so much time!" she had said, and he had reconsidered it before she gave him this one as a "welcoming to adulthood" gift. Osamu wondered how much time someone could waste just waiting for water to boil, and found himself doubting his mother's words.

As he mixes the beverage, he takes a look at his new place; there's a lot of work to do yet before he can consider himself settled. Osamu brought a few things from his parents' house: an old fan that still worked, a couple of cooking utensils, bedsheets, a small lamp from their old bedside, his cooking books, his matress, and not much else out of his clothes and personal things. But being almost all yet on boxes, the apartment looks empty. It's deadly quiet, too. Osamu has never had quiet before.

He makes his way back to the spot on the floor where he sat moments ago, still mixing the coffee, and sits once again. He never liked coffee, but his parents used to tell him that once you grow up, you start to get fond of it. He takes a sip from the mug, and while downing it on his throat and eyeing once more this new place, he decides he still doesn't like coffee, which leads him to wonder what part of him has already grown up.

Sure, he's a 1,85 cm tall dude almost on his twentys, but except for his physical growth, he keep feeling small.

" _Small, like this apartment_." He smiles at the silly thought, "But I guess it doesn't have a brother that makes him feel even smaller, at least".

His eyes narrow, his frow reflecting his concern. Where did that thought come from?

He allows himself to rest his back on the floor, the recent swept he did assuring it was clean, facing at the ceiling.

Was that how he really felt? Atsumu made him feel like that?

Of course, Atsumu was a petty, egocentric, bad-mouthed and bratty jerk, he had made it very clear throughout all their lives that he didn't care who he had to step on in order to accomplish what he wanted and to stand out on it. This troublesome thought allows Osamu to ask himself if Atsumu had also saw him as a rung.

That couldn't be right, Osamu would have kicked his ass if Atsumu tried to step over him, he would have known, because he knows Atsumu and knows when he's being so full of himself.

But, just as a mere possibility, what if he didn't?

What if Atsumu himself had found a way to survive while issolated, with no friends, only in climbing from the other's back up to the top? He remembers the amount of people that avoided him, since middle school until high school, the amount of kids that didn't want to go to play at their home because they didn't like Atsumu, the teammates that only talked to him for extremely necessary reasons, the go-outs they didn't invite him to.

Osamu didn't like being excluded, so he found having friends useful, for which he was (or acted) kind, laidback, and chill. Osamu had, also, found a way to survive in not being like his twin.

So what if Atsumu just assumed that was how to live? Shouldering things on his own since he won't get any attention from others, and stepping on the rest as an exchange for not sharing his devotion, his passion, or his struggles. What if he didn't see, even unconsciously, the difference between Osamu and those who abandoned him, as a defense mechanism that didn't allow him to treat people like any more than peasants?

Osamu's eyes are now wide open, this train of thought is making his head hurt, and out of reflex he sips his coffee again. It's so bitter he can't understand why other people like it so much. But, then again, this situation is bitter, and he also can't understand why he allowed it.

He was aware that he didn't want to keep doing volleyball after he graduated, he didn't want to make it his living, even though he liked it. Instead, Osamu really loved cooking, it was his passion, and maybe, something that contributed to his decision of dedicating to it was the fact that, with this, Atsumu and him could be at least a bit less identical.

 _All on his own_ was a phrase that Osamu never expected to apply for himself. He hadn't experienced a second on his own, but now that he is alone on this evening as the sun keeps hiding from the world, like it might never return, he considers that maybe loneliness is the thing he, them, feared most.

People live as a society for survival, Osamu learned that on school. Atsumu found an alternative way to survive in using the people around him to climb higher in the neverending hill of his ambitions, and Osamu had found a way of survival in surrounding himself with people that would willingly help him get there. But the common factor here is the fear.

What will they do when they get to the top? To where no one else has ever arrived? What will they do when they truly, really, find themselves like they've never done; utterly alone? That's the unavoidable fate of those who succeed.

Since the womb, they stuck together and never parted; and this, staying with the other half of you that separated itself in the begining to create a new being, but that is essentially the same thing as you, the same heartbeat, and possibly the same soul, as you watch each other grow each time more unlike, while being (or not) aware of it, until the final second in which your individuality gets at risk , is also survival.

That's the reason why growing up (growing up _apart_ ) seems so scary, so unfitting for him, because the most primitive instinct Osamu has is wanting to survive, and he never did it without Atsumu by his side, which doesn't mean he needs him to do it, but also there's no garantee he can in the first place.

Anxiety makes a thread curl on his chest, tangling his lungs and heart, and suddenly his ears succumb under the overwhelming pressure of his heartbeat.

Osamu sits straight on the floor, lifting in a useless reflex a hand towards his chest, where an unnoticed void has been growing for who knows how long, and proceeds to consume his insides. Every breath he takes in comes shorter than the last, and a sharp pain places at his stomach, twisting it.

He is smart enough to recognize anxiety as it is, but he can't stop himself from thinking.

Because, if they stuck together all their lives, if in every moment they spent side-by-side it was more about being the same person than individuals, if every "Even if you take down Atsumu, his twin Osamu will be right there to pick up the slack" meant that they were a pair whose whole existence revolved around each other, only serving the other's purpose in a endless circle in which no one could tell them apart, not even themselves; who are they?

Who is Atsumu?

Who is _Osamu_?

"Am I even someone when I'm not with him?" he's able to pronounce, as he tries to take deeper breathes and focus on some sensitive stimulus to ground him; the sooth ceramic from the mug, and the coffee's dark color.

Dark.

Dark.

Dark as his locks when he didn't dye his hair, he finds himself remembering.

Dark as the circles under Atsumu's eyes when he stayed late into the night at the school's gym.

Dark as their high school's uniform.

Dark as the very same things that intertwined them, and made them one.

Hurried, Osamu stands up and goes to the bathroom, and shoves his face under the running water of the tap, hoping it will drawn his thoughts. The coolnes helps subtly to attenuate the heat the spinning cogs in his head are creating, and when he feels it's enough he closes the tap, and looks at the mirror.

While drops fall down his face, and his soaked hair makes his t-shirt wet, he stays there for a moment, just looking. He isn't sure he recognizes who's in the mirror, staring back at him, anymore.

Feeling a tiredness he wasn't aware he carried, he searches for a towel and starts the shower. When the water's warm enough, or maybe earlier, he doesn't care at the moment, he strips and gets in. Baths usually relax him, but the apartment doesn't have a bathtub, so he'll have to settle for the shower in hopes it would do the same effect.

Once the runing water makes contact with his skin, Osamu realizes how different this place is from his parent's house; the shower head is only a few centimeters taller than him, the enclosure is wide enough to just let him turn, but not much else, and because of this he abruptly feels self-conscius about his size while thinking about how hard must have been for his parents to get a house big enough for two boys of their size, but he pushes this ideas away as he allows himself to go back into introspection.

That being the case, with complete honesty, Osamu has to acknowledge that he had had this thoughts earlier in his life, and maybe Atsumu has too, but the mere concept is so disturbing that as long as they could have a distraction from it, they would ignore it (and having a twin who they spent almost every waking second with was distracting enough).

The rain hits his face with a pleasant pressure, and it's muscles finally find themselves free of tension while he massages them, the soreness stress brought beginning to faint.

Sighing deeply, he lets his mind run free another time, because the damage is already done, the unsettling seed has been planted, and the forbidden apple of discord has already been bitten, so there's no turning back now.

Osamu brings back the last question on his mind; who am I?

How can he enter adulthood without knowing such a basic concept like "himself"?

Therefore, in an attempt to regain balance, he starts numbering things he does know: He knows his name, he knows his memorys, and he knows his passions. " _Am I my name? Am I my memory? Am I my passions?_ " None of that sounds about right.

So, he keeps searching, while giving the steam permission to entirely fill his lungs, wishing it would be enough to melt the knot tangling them.

" _Does Atsumu knows who he is_?" He shakes his head out of reflex, he has to find this answer without Atsumu, otherwise they'll never be fully someone without the other.

Diving in his mind, as the soap cleans away the filth of, hopefully, both his body and mind that the moving brought, he gets more and more clueless.

After a couple of minutes, he closes the tap and exits the shower, wrapping the towel around his hips, and makes his way back to the living room.

The mug's still there, laying on the floor, and the coffee's cold. Osamu picks it up and carrys it to the kitchen's sink and intents to clean it before realizing he still doesn't have dishsoap, so leaves it at the bottom and makes a mental note for buying some tomorrow.

Walking away from the kitchen, and now looking in one of the open boxes for new clothes to put on, he wonders if maybe his parents felt this uncertainity at some point, but while he dresses he pushes the idea of asking them away, he's about to be twenty already, he can't come back crying to them like a kid. Atsumu would laugh.

In exchange, he walks to his matress, even now on the living room (his mother would have called him lazy for not taking it to the bedroom, but he had made the moving alone so he justifies it), makes the bed, and dubitates who to ask this troubled enigma as he lays down.

Without much of a second thought, he grabs his phone and scrolls until the most wise person he knows' name appears on the screen, he taps it and hears the dialing.

After a few seconds, in which Osamu's heart stopped, he hears:

"Hello?"

"Kita-san," Osamu greets, throat suddenly dry, "it's been a while."

"It sure has, Osamu" Kita's voice answer, sort of confused but fond nevertheless.

There's a silence between them, Osamu hasn't had silence since he was born, and he can't help but getting so nervous that he runs his mouth.

"How's everythin'? I heard the farm's going great." Unconsciously, he bites his lip on an anxious manner.

"Everythin's goin' great indeed, thank you for askin'", Kita's politeness is almost tangible across the line, and Osamu can feel his corteous smile, but befores he keeps delaying the subject any further, Kita retorts; "Is there a reason why you called me?"

Kita must know the answer, Osamu believes, his psychic powers must have notified him that he was going to call or something, he's always had a sharp intuition. Osamu bets that he doesn't even need to say what his reason is for Kita to know it. Nevertheless, he's growing, or learning to, and he acknowledges that he has to ask this in order to move foward.

"Kita-san, do you know who you are?"

Another silence presents itself, more intense than the previous one, in which Osamu can only hear Kita's breathing on the other side, as embarrassment for the sudden interrogation rushes up to his cheeks.

"Ah, sorry, it's a deep question, guess I shoulda introduce you the topic befor-"

"I am built upon the little things I do everyday," Kita replies, matter-of-factly, and Osamu can't feel any doubt on his tone, so he assumes Kita has asked himself the same question before, "I am my perseverance, my diligence, and my repetitions."

Osamu is quiet, waiting for him to continue, but the pause is so long he theorizes he will have to talk again, but Kita surprises him one more time.

"I am what I believe on, and what I don't, I am my values, my virtues and my problems." He has to admit that hearing his Kita-san confessing he has problems sounds unbelievable, but he doesn't share it. "I am everything I want to be, and what I am is nothing but a byproduct of that."

Osamu takes a deep breath, loud enough for Kita to hear, digesting his answer, and is quick to speak so they won't fall silent again.

"I understand."

"But, Osamu," Kita's tone warnes, "I am _not_ the people who love me, not matter how close I am to them".

Osamu tries to take another deep breath, but it shakes halfway through as he feels his chest like a volcano about to erupt. He must have bet some money Kita would hit on the right nerve. Osamu always had wondered how he seemed to just know everything; if maybe some deiti had blessed him with the gift of clarividence, or maybe he was a deiti. Or maybe, just maybe, he was a real, terrifying human being.

"I am someone apart from how I am with someone else, but this is also a part of me, it's just not all." Kita goes on, as he sees himself not being stopped. If he knows he has treated the exact point Osamu needed to discuss (and Osamu is sure he does), he doesn't mention it. "There's a lot more of me than that, and I found out about this, I _had_ to find out, being alone."

With the realization, Osamu can feel his vision blurr slightly, as the last scent of anxiety leaves his erupted chest along with the sigh he frees.

Kita isn't talking anymore, so Osamu understands that as the last statement.

"Thank you" he murmurs to the phone, with the tone of someone confessing a fear.

"You're welcome" his politeness returns, fondness slaping Osamu across the face as if this monster hadn't revealed one of existence's most asked dilemas mere seconds ago. "But," he says once again.

"But?" Osamu is able to repeat.

"Remember, that this is my belief of who am I, that's also me. But you'll have to find out if that's your belief too, or not, also on your own, or not, and that's also who _you_ are."

"Now you're just makin' my head hurt."

Kita laughs tenderly at the other side of the call.

"I sure did," then, another pause takes place, but isn't akward anymore. Nevertheless, Kita must have things more important to do than solving his identity´s crisis, because he breakes the silence again; "Is that all you had to ask?"

Osamu doubts for a minute, but decides to let this unseemingly feral man go.

"Yeah, that's all."

"Okay then, i'll be hunging up now if you don't need anything else."

"Alright, thank you again."

"You're welcome, again", he laughs once more, Osamu doesn't think he has ever heard Kita-san laugh more than once, so this is weird, "and Osamu?".

Kita's voice sound so serious and unshakable at this moment that he doesn't recognize the faintest scent of the previous laughter on it.

Gulping, and a bit afraid due to his former captain's change of tone, Osamu answers;

"Y-Yeah?"

" _Take care of youself_." His demand leaves no room for arguments.

Osamu wonders if this man notion of affection is intimidating the other into self-care or if he's just messing with him, but too afraid to ask, he manages to respond:

"I'll try my best."

"Good, see ya' then."

"Mhm, see ya'."

And Kita hungs up.

The next morning, Osamu wakes up early in order to arrive at his part-time job on time.

He's considerably calmer than he was yesterday, being able to bring himself to have appetite, given that the recent anxiety closed his stomach, and, to be honest, that was the worst experience of his life. Not being able to eat was a form of torture, Osamu assures now.

Therefore, now that his stomach roars again with need, he quickly puts the kettle on in order to make himself some breakfast, rushing to the bathroom for a speedy shower afterwards.

When he gets out of the shower, he admires his reflection once again in the mirror. Only when he starts brushing and stylizing his hair, Osamu notices his grown roots, and after debating with himself for a while, decides that maybe going back to black isn't a bad option, he remembers it looked good on him.

While exiting the bathroom, Osamu stumbles with the packed boxes left, and finds it really difficult to find the one that had his job's uniform. It takes him so much time looking for it that once he's finally dressed, it's already 7:45 a.m, and the shop opens at 8 o'clock.

Knowing he has about ten minutes of a busride to get there, Osamu surpases lightspeed; so he thanks the kettle, after all, for being ready and actually saving him time, since he can now hastily prepare a cup of tea which he chugs down half a bag of cookies with.

He makes another mental note to prove his mother right next time he sees her.

**Author's Note:**

> And that´s it. Please let me know if you liked it!


End file.
